Stop, that’s our treasure, Spain tells Britain

IT WAS billed as the shipwreck find of the century with £250m of treasure recovered from a sunken 17th-century vessel lost off Land's End.

But the landmark discovery is now at the centre of an international legal battle amid claims that the haul has come from another ship which sank 1,000 miles away.

At stake for the salvage company that recovered the treasure is 17 tons of silver coins. It claims ownership rights because it says the wreck is owned by no state and was found in international waters.

The treasure, said to be the most valuable such haul ever found, is reported to have come from the 366-year-old Merchant Royal, which sank near the Isles of Scilly. It was known by some as the…